Patiala boy rescued, 4 held

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 26

Taking a cue from a South Indian dubbed movie, four masons from Dirhba in Sangrur decided to get rich by extorting Rs 30 lakh as ransom. They connived to carry out a daring kidnap of a six-year-old boy. Two bikes, a mobile phone, two knives and some chocolates were all they had for the kidnapping, which went as planned until they ran out of luck and were arrested.

Almost 40 hours after the kidnapping, the Patiala police safely recovered the kidnapped boy, Hartejibir Buttar, and arrested the four masons, who had planned to extort Rs 30 lakh from his family. A team, led by Patiala SSP Gurmeet Chauhan and comprising Inspector Bikramjit Brar and Shaminder Singh, rescued the boy.

“We rescued the boy, who had been kept in confinement near a dera in Dirhba,” said Patiala Zone Inspector General Paramraj Umranangal. “Four persons involved in the crime have been arrested and they have a criminal record, which is being investigated,” he said.

The SSP told The Tribune that those arrested were Kuldeep Singh, Gurbhinder Singh, Parkash and a 16-year-old juvenile (name withheld), all hailing from Safipur village in Dirhba. One of them had worked in the vicinity of the victim’s house and zeroed in on the boy and his family to extort money.

“The kidnappers divided themselves into two groups. While one group was on the prowl near the victim’s house, the other two kept a watch on the child,” said the SSP, adding that two mobile phones were used in the crime.

Sources in the Police Department said two of the accused today tried to throw a “ransom letter” written in Punjabi with Hindi dialect in which the kidnappers had demanded Rs 30 lakh from the victim’s family. The sources said they also threatened to kill the child in case the police were informed. “An alert police team deployed near the victim’s house saw bike-borne youths and became suspicious. The police frisked the youths and recovered the ransom letter from them following which the child was recovered safely,” the sources said.

On being interrogated, one of the accused told the police that after kidnapping the child, they took him to an abandoned shop near Bhadson where he was kept on the first night.

“The accused gave him some chocolates and a mineral water bottle and told him that if he raised the alarm, he would be beaten,” the sources said.

“Yesterday morning, the accused rode through village routes and shifted the boy near a dera in Sangrur,” they said. 

Inspector Brar said preliminary investigations suggested that the accused used stolen bikes in the crime. “The safety of the child was paramount for us. For two nights, we were on the streets to track the kidnappers,” he said.